Edwards ad touts him as a tough guy

updated 9:36 a.m. ET July 18, 2007

CONCORD, N.H. - Elizabeth Edwards tells voters her husband, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, is a tough guy "who can stare the worst in the face and not blink" in an ad set to start airing Wednesday in New Hampshire.

Elizabeth Edwards, who makes frequent campaign stops in early voting states for her husband, appears in the ad that the campaign hopes will highlight the couple's marriage.

"I have been blessed for the last 30 years to be married to the most optimistic person that I have ever met," she says as photographs from the campaign fade in and out. "But at the same time he has an unbelievable toughness, particularly about other people, and that is his ability to fight for them."

John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee, was wrapping up an anti-poverty tour through eight states on Wednesday.

"You're not going to outsmart him. He works harder than any human being that I know, always has," Elizabeth Edwards says. "It's unbelievably important that, in our president, we have someone who can stare the worst in the face and not blink."

Elizabeth Edwards in March announced that her breast cancer had returned and spread to bone. During her first bout with cancer, she was treated with surgery and several months of radiation and chemotherapy. But the recurrence of the cancer hangs over the campaign, both personally and politically.

Elizabeth Edwards made a cameo appearance in an earlier campaign ad, but this is her first speaking role.

Her recent remarks have attracted attention. On Tuesday, Elizabeth Edwards said her husband would be a better advocate for women as president than his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. She also said of Clinton: "Sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues. I'm sympathetic — she wants to be commander in chief."

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